#turns out I have a specific type of blorbo

[shoukohime]

babygirl the way you forsake your happiness on your relentless quest to vengeance, your complicated relationship with gender and the way you're covered in blood have bewitched me body and soul

[annymation]

Okay, now I wanna know how the calming from nightmares would play out between Aster and Asha…which means I’m giving you full permission to write this type of angst.😅 Maybe the two of the have a nightmare about those AU endings you gave each of them (Asha is cursed and Aster is a black hole). If it means I see a wholesome interaction of either of them calming each other from a nightmare, it’ll be worth the angst.

OOOOH-HOO HA HA HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Oh Emptyblog7 my poor, naive, little friend! You have no idea of what you just unleashed!

Thanks to you, I can now explore the deep machinations of my characters psyche, their deepest and untold fears are revealed in poetic ways, and best of all, I get to make my favorite blorbo suffer YIPPIEEEEEEE!!!

So anyway, Asha got a nightmare in chapter 8 of Kingdom Of Wishes (In the updated version) so I guess it's Aster's turn.

"All you'll have to do is give her a true love's kiss" Explained Acrux, the south star of the southern cross constellation. The elder star spoke calmly with a wise and serene smile "If your feelings are indeed true love, then... You shall become a human"

He finished that sentence with his voice sounding slightly quavery, almost as if he was trying to hide from Aster a sense of dread he was feeling.

Aster, however, didn't notice the uneasiness in his voice at all. The young star was beaming with the news that the stars would actually grant his wish. He couldn't stop smiling, frantically moving his arms up and down with an unbound energy.

Aster celebrated in front of all the stars that surrounded them "WOOOAAAAH!!! LETS GOOO-" But he stopped himself, realizing it was best to show maturity in front of the ancient star "I mean- ahem- Thank you, for giving me this chance" The little star bowed down his head to Acrux, to which the brighter star just smiles amusedly.

Another star that was among the many others gathered around them spoke up "We couldn't, in good conscience, let you go without asking one thing first" The star that walked forward was Meissa, more specifically, she's the head of Orion "Do you truly understand what your wish entails?"

"Ummm sure I do, it means I get to spend the rest of my life with the one I love" Aster replied with his eyes sparkling brighter than the sun.

And speaking of which "Indeed, the rest of your life..." The sun from the earth's solar system herself spoke "A life that, for us, will be nothing but a passing moment... We'll view your life the same way humans view the life of a butterfly. Freeing and beautiful, sure, but also short and fragile." She explained with a smile that carried some worry behind him

Aster understood what the other stars were worried about, that he'd regret this choice, that something bad would happen to him, he smiled and tried to reassure them "I know, and I've already accepted that. As long as I have Asha by my side I have nothing to fear"

...

A voice echoed from the crowd of stars "Well then, I guess we're asking the wrong question. Aren't we?" Just from their tone, it was noticeable how they were smiling while speaking.

Aster was caught off guard by the voice. Deep down, they knew that this whole thing felt quite "Deja Vu"... Almost like a memory he was re-living... But that felt different, he didn't remember this part.

Aster turns towards where the voice came from, he doesn't know which of the stars spoke "And uh- what would the "right question" be? Heh heh" Aster asked, feeling anxious all of the sudden, not sure why.

The stars that were gathered around moved to the side, almost like a door sliding open to reveal who had spoken... Aster's breath hitched.

All he saw was two eyes. Two tiny, shiny, yellow eyes. On a dark silhouette.

Aster couldn't quite make out who or what the silhouette looked like. But he knew one thing... That's NOT how stars present themselves when taking a physical form... This is something else.

Aster floats backwards slightly, his eyes darting around to the other stars, he looks at them distressed as if to ask "Are you all seeing that?"

But they seem unnerved by the newcomer... They actually have no reaction at all.

The shadowy figure then says "The question isn't if you're prepared to die eventually, of coooourse you are." There's nothing to be seen on their face besides their eyes, however, Aster can practically HEAR their huge smile as they speak. The silhouette takes a few steps forward as they ask their first question "What you really should ask yourself is...

Are you ready to lose her?"

Aster felt a chill run down his spine... Which was odd, stars can't feel cold. He tried to open his mouth to speak but-

"Are you ready to be even MORE helpless than you already were?"

His voice didn't come out, it was as if something was holding his lungs. Aster turned to Acrux but-

"Are you ready to be useless for her, again?..."

Acrux wasn't there, he vanished. Aster quickly looks around, and to his horror... The stars are gone.

Aster is shaking, all he sees around him is darkness. There's nothing, there's no one. Just him, and this thing getting closer and closer.

The figure suddenly get's close really fast, floating right above him "Tell me, do you really think you can protect her?" He sneered, it felt more like a mockery than a question "Even though you can't even protect yourself?"

Aster was frozen in place, staring at those bright eyes looming above him.

Suddenly, he feels himself getting smaller, but not because he was shrinking. Looking down, Aster sees he's being sucked into a hole that opened beneath his feet.

They try to scream, but no sound came out.

And even if it did, no one would hear.

It's just the two of them, in the dark emptiness of space.

Aster feels as if they're being swallowed by quicksand, as his feet sink down slowly, down and down into the hole of emptiness.

"Heh heh it's like they said, you're just as fragile as a bug now" the shadow couldn't hold in a lowly chuckle as floated in circles above Aster, watching the other sinking down slowly in amusement "Ah but then again, that's nothing new to you, is it?" those glowing yellow eyes pierced through Aster's soul "Even when you had magic, you were weak. Now? Now you're NOTHING!" The shadow's hand SLAMS with all force on Aster's face, now pushing him down, making him sink faster and faster. "So, when something WORSE than Magnifico shows up, what will you do? Hmmm?" Aster tried to pull and punch the hand out of his face, but it wouldn't budge, it was like the arm was made of concrete. He was powerless to stop this "That's right, NOTHING!" The hand pushed Aster down harshly, he could feel his whole lower half was being pressured from all sides, like he was being buried alive.

From between the dark fingers, Aster could open his eyes to look at the silhouette face to face...

He wasn't a silhouette anymore.

Aster could see their face... It was his own face.

It was like looking in a mirror, albeit, a mirror with a very sinister smile.

"But hey! That's what you wished for, right?" they kept pushing Aster down, his chest was completely swallowed by the hole. The shadow grinned as he rambled almost playfully "To live unsure of what the future has in store, not knowing what other threats you'll be hopeless to stop next, wow, exciting stuff, huh?! Everyday a brand new failure!" Aster once again tried to scream, but his voice wasn't coming out no matter how hard he tried. They were buried now up to the neck. His shadow stopped smiling, now with a cold expression, he said one last thing before pushing Aster into the abyss "So don't cry about it when things get tough, you asked for it."

With one last push... Aster fell in.

And he kept falling. Down.

Down and down.

Free falling.

Down.

Until.

"AAAAAAAAAH!!!!!" Aster woke up in cold sweat.

The boy was breathing as if his heart was trying to jump out of his chest, his eyes darting around the room, blinking rapidly, trying to adjust to the darkness. The room was barely lit thanks to the light of the full moon coming from the window, but slowly, things started coming into focus.

Aster tried to calm himself, hugging his pillow as he looked around to ground himself back into reality. None of that was real, he was fine, he was in his room, with just a closet, a few books scattered on the floor, and a face staring at him.

"GAAH-" Aster let out another yell, realizing that the face staring at him was his own... Because there was a mirror on the other side of the room.

He let out a sigh, of both relief and frustration, he literally just got scared of his reflection, how pathetic is that?

They stared back into the mirror for a few moments. Seeing his now curly brown hair and freckled cheeks... He could also see how much he was shaking, even though it wasn't cold.

They breathed deeply a few more time, as everything from that dream started to sink in, and not only that, but everything else that has been happening since Aster became human.

All the times he got hurt by accidentally forgetting he couldn't fly anymore and Asha got really worried about him.

All the times they passed by the royals statues and Aster had in the back of his mind the lingering fear that maybe the spell wasn't permanent.

All the times he wanted to express how this is all so new and overwhelming, to the point he sometimes didn't want to hang out with Asha and the others, sometimes, he just wanted to be left alone.

But he can't say that, right? Their time together is short, he has to enjoy every day like it's his last, that's what being human is all about... Right? And... That's what he wished for...

Aster didn't even notice he was crying til he felt a knot stuck in his throat. Tears were running down his freckled cheeks as he still kept staring in the mirror.

*knock knock*

"AAH!" Aster screams for the third time in a row once he hears someone knocking on the door.

"Aster, are you okay? I heard you yelling" Asha's voice came worriedly from the other side of the door "May I come in?"

Aster quickly dried his own tears with his pillow "Oh he-hey Asha! Ye-yeah sure, I'm fine, just uh- I fell from the bed" he lied, trying to disguise how hoarse his voice sounded

Asha opened the door, wearing a simple orange night gown and holding a candle "Did you hurt yourself? That was a pretty loud scream"

She wasn't actually buying this "Fell from the bed" talk, she knew by now Aster sometimes had the bad habit of keeping any negative feelings to himself. They still had to work through that.

Aster chuckled awkwardly "Heheh oops, I should probably apologize to Dahlia, her parents and the neighbors tomorrow, shouldn't I?" he tried to lighten the situation, but the shakiness in his voice gave it away that he wasn't feeling well

Asha set next to him on the bed and placed the candle on the night stand "Aster, you know you can tell me anything... I want to help." She held his hand, soothingly caressing it with her thumb. With his other hand Aster dried another tear that threatened to fall from the corner of his eye. Asha gently held his other hand as she said "You can cry if you need to"

And that was enough to make Aster break into tears.

The two of them hugged, as Asha caressed his back gently and whispered words of reassurance, his sobbing slowly subsided into small hiccups, and later to just some spaced out shaky breaths.

Soon, Aster was able to take deep breaths and calm himself, although he had calmed down, the two remained in the embrace, like neither of them wanted to let go.

"... I'm afraid of the unknown." Aster admitted in a sigh "Of not knowing what'll happen with us in the future... What if something worse than the royals comes and I- I can't keep you safe..." Aster's voice started shaking again.

Asha held him closer "I'm afraid too... Everyone's afraid of not knowing what'll happen next, that's part of life" she explained, feeling her own heart ache, as she indeed understood what Aster meant, or at least part of it "But we promised we'd protect each other, remember? That means I'm here for you too" She let go of the hug to look at him in the eyes with a smile "So don't put so much pressure on yourself, okay? We're in this together"

Aster's tears still glistened with the moonlight coming from the window, but he had a bittersweet smile.

"Thank you..." Aster pondered for a moment, and then asked "Is it okay if we cancel those plans we had for tomorrow and just... Stay home? Maybe just talking?... I think I want take the day to relax" He wasn't sure if it was selfish of him to ask that

"Of course we can." Asha replied warmly "That's actually a great idea, to be honest, we've been showing you so much human things everyday it probably got you kinda stressed, huh?"

Aster hugged her once again, she didn't know how much that meant to him.

"Thank you for understanding... I love you, Asha."

Asha hugged him back with a smile "I love you too, Aster"

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Dang that was a lot. I had to do some research about dream symbolism, look up the meanings of "Not being able to scream in a dream" and "Sinking in quick sand in a dream" and also "Free falling in a dream" for more insight.

Basically what I wanted to explore was both Aster's fear of not being strong enough to protect Asha, a fear that carried over since their star boy days to his human days, and also the guilt that comes from not feeling 100% happy after getting something you wanted all your life. Aster wished to be human for so long, so he feel like he doesn't have the right to feel sad, otherwise they're being ungrateful, when of course there's nothing wrong with not being happy all the time, that's something Aster still gotta work through.

In conclusion, Aster needs some therapy, luckily Asha is the next closest thing.

Tagging yall cause I've been teasing this angst for days now lol @gracebeth3604 @uva124 @emillyverse @oh-shtars @signed-sapphire @kstarsarts

[bemusedlybespectacled]

so, I'm thinking a teensy bit more about character death and, specifically, the death of a main character in a comedy show that I'm actually okay with. I'm talking about Death in Paradise.

Just as a primer for people who weren't raised by teaboos, it's a murder mystery comedy show, the premise of which is that there is one white British detective inspector guy who solves murders with his group of local cops: basically Midsomer Murders but on a fictional Caribbean island.

The comedy is always that he's some kind of socially awkward nerd who clashes in some way with his otherwise-entirely-Caribbean office, especially his black female second-in-command, even though they've at this point had four different DIs and I don't know how many changes of supporting characters.

The first two seasons, with DI Richard Poole, are your typical cozy murder-of-the-week-type mysteries. And then the third season starts, and the first mystery of the season is who killed DI Poole.

Like, it literally opens exactly like a normal episode, with a cold open establishing the suspects and showing us the murder victim before cutting to the jaunty theme tune and opening credits. It's just that this particular murder victim is the main character.

And then the plot progresses in exactly the same way, with a different white British nerd guy leading the investigation, because THE PROTAGONIST FOR THE PAST SIXTEEN EPISODES IS DEAD.

Now, some key differences between this show and OFMD:

It's a murder mystery show, so the rules are inherently different. No Muppet physics here: people die all the time and they die in totally normal ways, like getting stabbed with an ice pick or drowned in a fish tank or turned into a science class skeleton.

While this was the first time a main character was killed off, it was not the first time the DI had been killed. The pilot had Richard solving the murder of the previous DI, only for it to be revealed that his black female second-in-command of that episode was the murderer (Camille Bordey, his actual #2, isn't assigned to him until the very end of that episode). Like, shocking twists about characters you thought were "safe" was established in the very first episode.

The death actually affected the fucking characters and the fucking plot.

It's been like ten years since this episode aired and I still really like this episode, even though it gutted me the first time I watched it (and I don't like the later seasons nearly as much). Like, it's not my favorite (that's 2x06), but it's definitely in my top three. Because even though this is the episode they killed off DI Blorbo From My Britbox, it's also an episode about him.

The comedy is toned way down because the entire office is gutted by his loss. They have to do mundane things like call his parents to tell them he died and review CCTV footage and wait for lab data like it's just a normal case when it's not. At every step, there's a "what would Richard have done?" moment. And even though this is the episode that introduces the new DI, Humphrey Goodman, the summation at the end is entirely about Richard, with this pretty sweet line:

You know, bizarrely, I'm the only one who never met Richard Poole. But during this case, I… I feel as though I've got to know him a little. Mostly by the effect he had on those around him. But it seems we all forgot one very crucial thing: he was a detective. A good one. I think he made a discovery, had a theory about what he discovered, and then sent home for evidence to corroborate that theory. And in doing so, he has, in essence, solved his own murder.

His presence is felt throughout the entire episode, even though he's only alive for the first three minutes or so. His death is disappointing (especially for those of us who shipped him with Camille), but it actually has an impact.

So when they brought back Camille in S10, years after she was written out, they also brought back Richard: Camille imagines having a conversation with him when she’s worried that her mother is going to die, and he gives her advice and comforts her. And that scene makes me cry every time I watch it, because it's clear that she misses him as much as the audience does.

We didn't get that in OFMD. We didn't get an acknowledgement of how Izzy impacted the other characters (except Ed, in the weakest way possible), or even them looking sad for longer than two minutes. We sweep past it immediately and go directly to a wedding and then Stede and Ed settling down together.

There’s no gravity to it. There’s no time to process the loss. Hell, for the characters, there ISN’T a real loss. And if the characters don’t care, why should we?

[matt0044]

On RWBY, The Amazing Digital Circus and Toxic Indie Fandoms...

Fans of cartoons, animated movies and animation in general have a... bit of a complex. Largely when it come to snubbing a new movie and/or show for not being just like what ever the standard bearer is at the time. A mentality that really hurts critical discussion than help. Like... getting mad at, say, Big City Greens of what Disney pulled with The Owl House is just not cool.

I find it happens a lot with Animation Twitter spaces being all about taking Disney down a peg be it because Spiderverse or Puss In Boots (take your pick at this point). Though in that case, it's a case of one-up-manship getting way too out of hand since there's at least a vocal push back.

With RWBY being pitted against every other indie animation, it's actually not too much of a unique case.

It has been a small scale project getting massive amounts of hype from the pilot (or Trailers as with RWBY's case) only for the show to come out and split its pre-established audience down the middle.

This split starts and widens when it comes to how a character may be initially presented only for more facets to them to be revealed. It should go without saying buuuuuuut the creative team are not mind-readers. Even the most popular of fanworks will inevitably NOT reflect what the show will develop into whether they come close or not.

However, that investment in fanon is liable to clash with what canon goes with. Some fans take it is stride and are willing to hear the showrunners on their direction. Others... take it personally.

Maybe a character that seemed mean but wronged turns out to be a very shitty person.

Maybe a character that seemed shitty has some hidden depths beyond how they initally came across.

Maybe the story is taking a turn that, well, had precedence but feels alienating to those who preferred the previous status quo.

Maybe the pacing feels off with certain reveals that may be a skill issue on the writer's part.

The issues may vary but a lot of this comes from a sort of "bigger they are" type of backlash with a lot of specific expectations formed of the story before there even was one.

Now this might sound like RWBY but... a lot of them were inspired by the polarized comments of Helluva Boss Season 2.

It happening to Vivziepop.

It's happening to RWBY.

And let me tell you, it WILL happen to The Amazing Digital Circus even if it has a limited run planned.

A character will become more than just some fan's blorbo for better or worse and said fans will loose their shit.

A ship will sail however much they wanted sunk.

No matter what, there will always be ONE FAN that will be pissed off.

[veliseraptor]

kinda random but what are your thoughts on Mat Cauthon as a character

speaking of asks that have been sitting in my inbox for way longer than is reasonable (January 24th, helpful time stamps tell me)

Mat's an absolutely fascinating character and I feel like while I've always enjoyed him in the reading experience, up until my more recent rereads I wouldn't have necessarily called him a fave - and I would still say he's in a different category from my truest Wheel of Time blorbo (Rand al'Thor) he is definitely in a "I am turning you in my head like a rotisserie chicken" category.

I was always a Mat/Tuon fan (of their relationship) from my first read, but I think that was very specifically about their dynamic more than being about either of them as individuals; I've come to appreciate them both more as characters over time.

I think it was on my most recent reread (which lasted from 2020-2023, with a big gap between Knife of Dreams and The Gathering Storm) that I really came to appreciate just how much Mat is an unreliable narrator, specifically about himself. And one of the things I find interesting about his specific type of unreliable narration is the way that...okay, I feel like there's an idea sometimes that equates unreliable narrators with liars, and can try to make unreliable narrator status a sort of moral indicator, but Mat's unreliable narration is very persistently in the direction of "this man is so determinedly clueless to his own self in a way that is directly contradictory to his behavior and psychology." There are two characters in Wheel of Time competing for least self awareness (Mat and Nynaeve) and I actually think Mat might be winning.

It's not even that he thinks poorly of himself, exactly - Mat doesn't spend a lot of time angsting about being selfish etc. - but he does have this image of himself as a person who is very much not a bloody hero that he is constantly actively contradicting without seeming to really notice it. And he just keeps doing it, forever. Love that for him.

He's just...I think I'm delighted particularly by the way he looks like one character at first blush - a particular type, or even a particular archetype - and then turns out to spend a lot of the series actively disproving that impression while continuing to more or less buy it about himself. What a guy.

I mean, I also just yesterday finally read @highladyluck's excellent meta on Tuon and Mat and their mutual character development via each other so I'm still thinking about that, too.

[nevertheless-moving]

Hi! I love your writing snippets - have you thought about posting them on ao3

Thank you!! Yes, I have thought about it, for sure! I'm nevertheless_turtle on ao3.

(I have... six fics, all of them star wars, half of them unfinished, last one updated in January 2022. Unless someone decides to put a million dollars in my kofi jar, this is for Fun, so unfortunately once the hyperfixation fades...it fades*.

:( star wars back and forth tumblr fics with star wars mutuals my beloved... murderbot discord i loved collaborative storytelling with ya'll and i miss you...i don't know how to make friends on the internet i just talk blorbos in situations and my blorbos drift over time... hello stormlight archive fandom)

! anyone want to talk about putting my type of blorbo, which when i check my notes is a pathetic wet person who is very good at killing but somewhat tries to avoid it, if you want to talk putting someone like that in a Situation, Hey! i may or may not be your person. this ask is really getting away from me i might be tired from walking a bunch of miles today...

*i do historically cycle back around to fandoms! i was lurking on tumblr for over a decade before i posted anything and there was definitely a cyclical nature to it! i consistently knit furiously for 3 months and then take a 4 year break! star wars fics wait for me!

aNYWAY writing fic directly into Tumblr adn/or Discord or if i don't have internet connection then a fuckin shitty notes app appears to be the Key for me?? like i tried fic writing before that in Word or Docs and it just didn't go?? idk! I think it's like the comic sans trick.

wait i still haven't answered the question.

you know, the thing is, when i write a snippet at the end of 5 paragraphs of background meta for an au, or a literal bullet point list, i'm not really sure how to post that to ao3. can you post chatfic and bullet points to ao3? it feels weird? idk. real question for the crowd in the midst of an extremely incoherent ask answer. let me know what you think!

me to myself: the question. scroll back up. what was the question. myself to me: that was answering the question! somewhat!

Right now a bunch of fic writing is churning around and out of brain, and circumstances have aligned for better or worse such that i have time and mental energy and ideas to write. we'll see how it goes. Once I get a bit more posted on tumblr i'll probably put things together and either make seperate works for different aus, or a masterwork of different tumblr aus that i don't think i'll develop further. i may turn some of those bulletpoint lists into cleaner fics for posting, making my earlier point moot.

some of my aus i already have a bunch written on my phone over meals or stopped in the middle of a side walk or on bus and train rides (why would an ELEVEN HOUR TRAIN RIDE not have an outlet to charge my laptop??). so. if i clean that stuff up ill probably post it to tumblr, then immediately notice the spelling mistakes, edit, then post to ao3.

a perfect system.

for my most recent snippet, well, that's actually self contained (not an au that requires 6 paragraphs of background to understand the snippet) and not a chat fic, so i WAS thinking i would just post it to ao3 soonish. i asked in the tags if anyone felt like betaing for ao3, i am wildly but unquestioningly assuming that the sorta individual who would want to beta a fic for me are reading the tags on my tumblr fic post. if anyone likes betaing stormlight or is interested in betaing a specific au/fic idea i've mentioned, hit me up.

TLDR above, tumblr is a for fun rough draft looser writing form place for me. ao3 feels like its asking for a bit more polish and structure. i have writing bees in my brain right now so i'm slightly more focused on that then editing, but if anyone feels like doing some form of beta, reach out and we can chat about it. regardless, i will clean up at least some of my recent snippets and post to ao3 eventually.

[seiya-starsniper]

Intros, tags and writing masterpost

Hi there! I'm Seiya, aka starsniper! (she/her) This is my blog for assorted blorbo posting and writing, hope you enjoy your stay 😄 I'm updating this post for 2024, and it's a doozy so most of it will be under a cut! Most of the info is the same, so if you've been here a while, don't fret! If you're new, this post is a pretty good rundown of me and my blog.

Writing Stuff:

AO3 Account: starsniper. You can also read my fics on Google Docs!

I'm also on Discord! The Sadman is a multi-ship open server for the Sandman fandom and it's an amazing community! I've even got my own little author's corner there called Seiya's Sexy Scribbles. Come find me and say hello!

Taking Requests?: I am! Send me anything that crosses your mind, with fandom and ship please!

Transformative Works: Consider this blanket permission to create any type of transformative work based off what I've written! I only ask you let me know what you've created either using the "Inspired By" link on AO3 or tagging me on Tumblr, just because I love, love, love seeing that sort of thing.

Tag Library:

As my blog is multi-fandom, as well as multi-ship, I've made a tag library! The main purpose of this library is so that I can more easily find my tagged posts, but it is also for my followers, who may want to find those same posts, or want to blacklist certain tags and topics present on my blog. Feel free to copy my format if you so desire, it's pretty simple! The library is under the cut, and will be updated a lot in the coming weeks as I wrangle more of my blog into some sense of organization. While the library does not consist of every tag I've ever used (that would be too much!), it does contain what I consider the most important ones.

Lastly, some of the tags will have links, and some will not! Tumblr has a link limit of 100 links per post to control spam posts, so only the tags that are useful for me and others to use as a quick search function will be linked. Tags that are more useful for blacklist purposes will not be linked, however you can still search that tag by typing the below link into your browser: https://www.tumblr.com/seiya-starsniper/tagged/[tag name here]

General Tags:

#seiya talks (all my original posts and ramblings)

#seiya answers (answers out of my ask box! Also includes fic prompt requests)

#seiya gets tagged (for all the tag games!)

#icons by seiya (tumblr icons I've made)

#gifs by seiya (gifs I've made)

#ask game (posts with ask games I reblog. send me an ask on anything you'd like!)

#original art (non-fandom art)

General Fandom Tags:

Note: Some of these tags are more active than others, this list is mainly for my own indexing, and not indicative of how active I am in a certain fandom. A lot posts under these tags will consist of reblogs unless tagged with one of my personal tags.

#the sandman

#dungeon meshi

#dndhat (dungeons & dragons: honor among thieves)

#loki (general loki tag, use #loki tv for only the tv series)

#ofmd (our flag means death)

#bnha (sometimes #my hero academia)

#yugioh (sometimes #ygo)

#fullmetal alchemist (sometimes #fma)

#gossip girl

#blue eye samurai

#interview with the vampire (sometimes #iwtv)

#ao3 (posts about AO3, mostly memes, but may include discourse)

Current Projects/WIPs tags:

#set the night on fire wip

#omegaverse forced marriage wip

#morphienne hell invasion wip

#dreamling memory loss wip

#hobrinthian: hob gets the skull au

#dreamling omegaverse regency wip sequel

General Writing tags:

#writing prompt games (send me a writing prompt from these posts! no post is too old to pick from 😄)

#seiya writes (all of my writing, across all fandoms)

#seiya drabbles (short fics/ask requests, usually under 1.5k words)

#seiya's wip previews (for snippets and previews on what I'm working on)

#wip inspo (things that might turn into fics! feel free to bother me about any of the ones that interest you!)

Sandman Fandom specific writing tags:

#seiya writes dreamling (dream x hob)

#seiya writes corintheus (dream x corinthian)

#seiya writes hobrinthian (hob x corinthian)

#seiya writes corinthienne (corinthian x lucienne)

#seiya writes gaulcienne (gault x lucienne)

#seiya writes hellmuse (johanna x calliope)

#seiya writes dreamuse (dream x calliope)

#seiya writes morphienne (dream x lucienne)

#seiya writes constantdream (dream x johanna)

#seiya writes sandflower (dream x nuala)

Past Writing Events & Challenges I've written for:

Note: these are links to specific masterposts, as well as tagged posts

Seiya's Monsterfucktober Bingo Fills

Sandman Femslash Weekend

Dreamling Bingo Masterpost

Smut May (Smay) Drabble Masterpost (multi-ship)

Smut April (Smapril) Drabble Masterpost (multi-ship)

Smut March (Smurch) Drabble Masterpost (multi-ship)

Centennial Husbands Big Bang

Sandman Fandom Tags:

Note: Because of the sheer volume of dreamling content, I've broken content for the ship out into multiple tags. I've also kept dreamling content entirely out of the #sandman fanart tag as well due to having followers who do not ship dreamling. Other non-dreamling ships may be included in that tag as a result, though those posts will use the appropriate ship tag as well. The same goes for #sandman fic rec as a catch all for non-dreamling fanfic, as well as gen fic.

#sandman fanart

#sandman fic rec

#sandman comics spoilers (anything not covered in season 1 of the Netflix adaptation)

#sandman s2 spoilers (anything related to the filming of Season 2, and Season 2 content when it airs!)

Dreamling Tags:

#dreamling fic rec (dreamling stories I've read and loved!)

#dreamling headcanon (dreamling fanfic adjacent posts)

#dreamling fanart (fanart that I love!)

Other Sandman Ships Tags:

#hobrinthian (hob x corinthian)

#corintheus (dream x corinthian)

#hellmuse (johanna x calliope)

#gaulcienne (gault x lucienne)

#corinthienne (corinthian x lucienne)

#calliene (calliope x lucienne)

#morphienne (dream x lucienne)

#constantdream (dream x johanna)

Other Fandom Shipping Tags:

Note: Same deal as the general fandom tags, some of these are more active than others, and will mostly be reblogs moreso than original content. This section is entirely self-indulgent for me, but also gives others a good idea as to what I ship. I'm very ship and let ship these days, so please don't try to debate me on ships, I won't answer.

#00Q

#taimizu

#xedgin

#thorki

#lokius

#steelatom

#atomwave

Fandom Discourse Tags:

Note: I don't like to participate in discourse, please don't tag me in it. Any past discussions I've been involved in have been resolved between myself and the parties that matter to me. That said, I will occasionally reblog discussions others may prefer not to see, so the below tags are for your convenience. I have these tags linked for my own archiving purposes.

#sandman discourse

#sandman critique

#fandom racism

#fandom discourse

#fandom wank

#ao3 discourse

Content Warning, Squicks and Trigger Tags:

Note: Posts with these tags will include informational/educational posts as well, just to keep things neatly organized. Since this list will inevitably get longer, I will not link any of these tags, but please feel free to blacklist them. I will do my best to try to tag more sensitive topics and also go back and tag older posts but it may take a while! Please let me know if I missed anything.

#nsft (general explicit content tag, if you wanted to avoid all of it)

#bugs (happy to tag a more specific bug)

#spiders

#snakes/#snek

#omegaverse

#pregnancy/#pregnancy kink

#dubcon

#noncon

#infidelity

#age gap

#animal hybrid (all animal hybrids here: centaur, naga, merfolk, minotaur, etc)

#tentacle sex

#interspecies (i.e: human/alien, human/centaur, etc)

#monsterfucker/#monsterfucking (usually also covered by interspecies)

#teacher/student

#racism

#misogyny

#transphobia

Politics tags:

#us politics

#global politics

#palestine

#voting

As a reminder, this post is a live document and will be updated as I find time to do so or, if I think of new tags I want to track and add to this post. I am happy to add additional tags if you reach out to me via DM or via non-anonymous ask. While I do have anon asks on for other purposes, since tagging is a sensitive subject, I will NOT answer anon requests for tags on my blog. If you are concerned about sending an ask from your main blog vs side-blog, Tumblr does let you send DMs from a side-blog, and I'd be happy to talk to you from there. Thanks for understanding!

[thana-topsy]

1,6,8,11,17 for the ask thing!

Answered #6 in this post, and #8 in this post!

A fanon characterisation that you love

Oh, this took some thought. I went scrolling through my AO3 bookmarks for this one. But at the end of the day I have to go with my good friend @nientedenada's interpretations of Elenwen and Ondolemar in her Q&A style fic: "The Dominion is Here and They're Answering Your Questions" - her take deeply influenced the way I wrote both of these characters in "Hollow Men" as well as just helped to shape the Thalmor into people in my mind, as opposed to stick man villains.

11. Recommend a fic with an unusual/original headcanon or characterisation that you loved

Accidental Double Thalmor Post, but I'm going to have to recommend "Evil is Made of Us" by LeviathansEyes on AO3 for their masterful interpretation of the Thalmor. It's a purely OC-driven fic that's technically a sequel to a much longer fic, but I think it can be enjoyed on it's own easily enough. I had already finished up my own Thalmor-centric fic (Hollow Men) by the time I was reading their work, but I was still SHOOKETH by the end of that story. It was an unflinching look at how "evil" manifests itself, but also how, at the end of the day, people are just people. "Evil" is a concept within the framework of an institution.

17. Something you love that you don’t often share because you’re worried what others will think

Hmm... well, for the most part I'm pretty shameless with most of the stuff I share. I put myself out there in good faith, and generally expect that my work will be taked in good faith in return.

I think, maybe, if I want to be vulnerable for a minute, I'll admit that I tend to meme on Neloth publicly a lot to cover up just how deeply I've been impacted by writing his character. More below the cut, because this turned into a bit of a ramble...

I write Neloth as a low-empathy individual who arguably has a personality disorder (I won't throw around specific labels, as I don't think there is a specific one that I had in mind when going into his stories). My love for Neloth runs incredibly deep because I've been working with this fatally flawed, deeply damaged character who has built his own defences up so impossibly high over hundreds of years that even he is unsure of where his own walls end and the core of himself begins.

And then, to pair him with Teldryn, (which I think most people who only see the ship art or the memes think I just picked two characters and smashed them together for fun or because Hee Hoo Gay, which... isn't a lie, but it isn't the whole truth either). I write Teldryn as an endlessly compassionate person beneath the armor he's been forced to wear (literally and figuratively) over the years. The Nerevarine Prophecy left him questioning his own place in the world with a terrible case of impostor syndrome, and then the Red Year absolutely ripped out his heart (no pun intended??) and left him feeling that everything he did amounted to nothing. So he's cynical and jaded, he's hiring himself out as a merc, he has every reason to hate the gods and the life that's been thrust upon him. And then, for whatever reason, when I put him and Neloth in a room together for long enough, they somehow managed to crack through each others' shells. And it wasn't pretty at first, and, hell, it wasn't even romantic. But it happened. And sometimes, writing can be magic like that.

So here's Teldryn, a literal hero, giving this (by all accounts) terrible person a chance to show that he's capable of both receiving and giving love, actually. And that love can look a little different in everyone. And augH GOD, I HAVE A FUCKING CHARACTER TYPE, OK???

Anyways, tl;dr -- Neloth is actually more than just my special little meow meow babygirl blorbo, he is my shadow self, my darkest reflection, the opposite of everything I strive to be and everything I fear becoming. And I think, by writing him as still being worthy of love and companionship and joy, I'm writing to let myself know that I am also worthy of such things.

[catgirl-catboy]

actually you'd get a kick out of this. i'm on twitter, checking for fanart of my niche fav. i make friends with a teenager who seems to also really like my blorbo. teenager really projects onto blorbo, who is a 19yo guy who helps out the mid thirties dilf who died on him. teenager thirsts over dilf, as one does. i ship these two. teenager turns on me in less than a week because i ship them and they're a 'proship'. teenager who, if you recall, projects on blorbo and thirsts for mid thirties dilf.

i got blocked but man. man. that teenager would have had so much a better time if they just Unlocked Themself From The Damn Chains Of Purity Culture And Just Thought About Fucking The Dilf. Goddamn.

Literally! Having crushes on people or characters that are way older than you is NORMAL.

The first crush I remember having was a 16 y/o when I was 12. Would that relationship work IRL? Hell no, just typing it is making me feel gross. But is it a thing that 12 year old brains do? yes.

Did we magically forget that having a crush on your teacher was supposedly this super common experience, and a bunch of books were marketed specifically to teenagers dealing with it.

The DILF is a fictional character. Arguably, its better to crush on a fictional character than a real person, due to the 0% chance of the fictional character abusing you.

[diruise]

>go back to pgr so i have something to do before new hsr story >get no21 from the a rank gacha cause i like her design >see her in battle, interact etc >she is one of the specific type of characters i have a huge weakness for (murderous little freak who grew up in a lab and has no idea how to act like a human being) >do her story >shes the only one the local battle hardened fucked up woman likes, after first hating her (dynamic i also have a weakness for) bros i think i just found a new blorbo. if it turns out she sucks meta wise idgaf she is my main now

[dois-funnyzone]

After putting it off for a while, I finally finished this very self-indulgent piece based on the final boss of Miitopia, featuring my OC Kandy as the Great Sage. ...Ok I have a lot of stuff I want to unload about the backstory and context of this piece so read more if you're interested in my probably incomprehensible rambles 😭 Basically I like Miitopia a totally Normal Amount and my newest playthrough made my brain go CRAZY which lead to this piece. Also there will be Miitopia endgame spoilers so ya

Basically the character as I've mentioned is my childhood OC Kandy in her revenge arc. I've been casually inserting her into some of my original work/fanfiction as a mischief maker that just wants some attention. She was originally a Mary Sue that I dropkicked as soon as I got in my "grr Mary Sue bad!!" phase but now I'm just fully embracing her OP-ness. I think it's fitting for her to start as the benevolent, powerful, and well-liked Great Sage who later gets corrupted into the godly Darker Lord, so I assigned her as such in my latest playthrough of Miitopia.

As I was playing this new run though of Miitopia, I decided to write a mini-fanfiction of sorts which just serves as an excuse for my blorbos to cross over and defeat evil together. I've done this for my past playthroughs and this one was no exception. However, since my own original character is playing as one of the most important NPCs in the game (And happens to be the only character not from a specific piece of media), I decided to add a little twist to this pass of the fanfic and make a sort of Alternate Scenario type deal.

In the original Miitopia, the Great Sage got corrupted by the Dark Curse following the defeat of the Dark Lord, which transformed them into the Darker Lord (Love the naming conventions of this game). In my AU, basically the Great Sage knew about the Dark Curse and purposely used the heroes to defeat the Dark Lord and take it for themself.

The Darker Lord ends up being the final boss of the main story of Miitopia, complete with multiple phases that lead up to an utterly BADASS confrontation against The Darkest Lord who is just a giant sun god and UGH IT'S SO GOOD YOU GUYS. And the music??? Amazing as well. I seemed out to recreate that epic feeling the boss fight gave me. But for this piece I decided to turn the Darkest Lord into sort of like a Stand that just menacingly looms over Kandy which she controls. There is a specific design for when the Great Sage goes evil mode in the game, and I did design Kandy's version of it, but I guess I just forgot about it. Plus, having this crazy little guy standing in front of their unfiltered godly form just made a cool visual so! :) I like to think that in this pass of my fanfic, Kandy's Darker Lord demon form probably comes out in desperation after the sun god is defeated, complete with the cool floating hands. This is obviously innaccurate to the actual ordering of these designs in the actual game but it's my fanfic and I get to break as many rules as I please >:)

Ok that explanation was probably pretty underwhelming but the tl;dr is that I started writing a min-fanfic where the Great Sage, played by my OC, is very evil from the beginning and only goes crazier from the power they get upon transforming into the Darker Lord.

I did want to make an accompanying comic where this character absolutely wipes the floor of my Mitopia team because she's just so Powerful and Awesome but that would reveal the types of characters in my Miitopia team, consequently revealing some of the fandoms I'm in and I just don't think the world is ready for that! But maybe when I reject my humanity I will not only make but publish my Miitopia team and them getting along and fighting evil <3 that's my ramble for this stupid art piece 😭

[donnerpartyofone]

I'm in some kind of abusive cycle with the blog where people submit their dreams. I love hearing people's dreams, so I follow it thinking it's going to be interesting, and then I have to unfollow because it feels like 90% of the posts are about celebrities and fandom shit, then I forget about it for a while until a really cool/funny/scary/weird dream gets reblogged onto my dash, then I follow it again out of some kind of moronic optimism, and pretty soon I remember why I unfollowed it the last time. I'm not sure which possibility is the worst,

a) that for the most part people only submit dreams involving celebrities or fandoms because they assume no one cares about anything else,

b) most of the submissions are made up but nobody has the brain power to invent anything that doesn't involve celebrities or fandoms,

c) actually a large volume of young people's dreams really are about celebrities and fandoms, like a lot of tumblr users just don't even dream about anything else.

Now that I've typed it all out I'm pretty sure (c) is the worst of all possible worlds, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were really true for a lot of people just based on the sort of online behavior I see. There's a reason the "blorbo from my stories" post blew up (and I often wonder if that person regrets it), about how you can post the most random non-human image possible and you'll still have people in your notifications explaining how it somehow represents whatever their main fandom thing is; "fandom" doesn't describe an interest or even a community anymore, its more like this condition of extreme narrowing of perception and cognition down to like one subject, and somehow this is something you're proud of. Seeing people reblog the blorbo post not to co-sign what OP was saying, but to say "Yay this is totally me!!!" with no sense that they're being criticized was really disturbing. There's actually an even worse version of this where somebody broke down the most common (generally sexual) characterizations and scenarios in fan fiction specifically to show how much of this content just perpetuates really ugly stereotypes and bigoted attitudes, but the fandom people got it and reblogged it like "Yay this is totally me!!!" while OP was going...oh my god doesn't anyone understand what I said? There's this kind of scary, culty "FANDOM GOOD" thing that's like so pathological that it actually affects people's reading comprehension and makes them unable to even perceive criticism unless you push things to the extreme and bring nazis or pedophiles or something into it, you have to go so far as to tell someone they're a bad person to break through with them.

Anyway I know this isn't a scientific fact but I agree with the popular notion that dreams are a way of processing experiences and feelings that you're not done chewing on yet. For the most part your dreams should be made up of things, however filtered they are through symbolic language, that are somehow unresolved for you. You shouldn't be closing your eyes at night and just seeing a stream of the exact same pacifying stuff you choose to watch on TV. If that's happening more than once in a great while, you might have given yourself some form of brain damage, and I'm only being slightly sarcastic about that.

(Actually I think it's probably abnormal if you have a lot of wish fulfillment dreams in general; I used to have this friend who turned out to be completely toxic and nuts, and he was always happy to tell me these dreams he had where like he's a cross between Batman and Superman and he punishes everyone who was ever mean to him and then everyone worships him and he becomes the king of the universe or whatever. And I always thought oh my god, why isn't he embarrassed by this, if I had dreams like that about myself where I'm the best person ever and everyone else is either my victim or my slave, I don't think I would repeat it to anyone! But ANYWAY)

I've probably written this post before without even realizing it, which means I have my own problem where I need to disconnect from this thought process. Tumblr used to be a place where you could see weird, cool, interesting stuff that didn't really exist elsewhere, and it was reasonably easy to curate your experience; now the fandom thing is just at such a critical mass that it feels like you're always about one degree of separation from it no matter what you do. When capacity made that post the other day about how you can't even search for any media you're interested in on tumblr because all you get is the fan activity around the thing and not the thing itself (or god forbid your search involves a normal English word that happens to relate to a fandom, then you're really fucked)--when I first saw that post it had almost 8,000 notes and it was only 7 hours old. Whether you're someone who likes it or not, everyone knew what that was about, we are all experiencing it.

I would probably be slightly less bothered if I just let myself think that all the celebrity and fandom posts clogging up that dream blog are mainly just made up, due to whatever compulsion makes people make up inconsequential bullshit on the internet. I remember when FML was a thing, and at first it was kind of fun and kind of like this shared catharsis thing, but pretty quickly it became full of obviously fake stories that were so extreme they weren't even funny, like if someone said those things out loud in your presence you'd just feel sorry for them, that they want attention so bad they'll tell degrading lies about themselves to get it. Actually though the site started to degenerate into basically two kinds of content, which were not necessarily mutually exclusive, but it was always either people telling degrading lies about themselves for attention, or people telling elaborate stories about how they ate all kinds of poisonous garbage and then they shat themselves in public. And for one thing, I don't think it counts as a proper FML if you deliberately did something that was not a good idea and then immediately suffered the most predictable consequences, you know like eating hot cheetoes in gravy and washing it down with a liter of grape soda and then shitting your pants is kinda the same as "I knowingly stepped in front of a speeding car and it hit me and I was badly injured and now I'm in the hospital, fuck my life!", it's not really a surprising misfortune or irony, it's just something you did on purpose because you have no self-control even though only one outcome was possible. But I always had the feeling that the pants-shitters were American, and like obviously America has a problem with junk food, so I started to wonder if everywhere you go here you're just always near at least one person who is one more bad decision away from shitting their pants. Maybe it's true, I dunno, it's starting to seem likely. Maybe we should just change the name of the country to Pantshitsylvania and get it over with, it's probably what we deserve.

[shinelikethunder]

Regarding your tags about Good Omens not making your brain go brrrr - it's really interesting because early on while I was watching the new season, I found myself asking, like, "Is this actually good or do I just enjoy it?" And very quickly I decided the answer was "Well, you see, I enjoy it so much."

But as a result I've been thinking a lot about how I define whether or not a story is "good" because surely that indefinable quality of Makes Brain Go Brrrrrr should figure into it somewhere. And there's the inverse phenomenon to account for, of things that are like a dead fish to the fictive libido. I think that might be even more subjective, though.

It's not that I think quality is a totally meaningless concept when assessing art, I've just been thinking I might need to make more space within my metric for things like "joy" and "energy" and "vibrates my brain like a tumble dryer". As opposed to seeing those things as incidental and trying to take my own emotional response out of the equation.

it's a factor for sure, but if SPN proves anything, it's that "vibrates my brain like a tumble dryer" can be completely orthogonal to quality and enjoyment... sometimes the vibration is from canon having a two-for-one flash sale on hate crimes and writing crimes, y'know? sometimes episodes i find genuinely excruciating make me want to dissect them like bugs. (and on the flip side, there are plenty of works i do very much love on their artistic merits and enjoy, but not in the specific way that makes me want to scream in the tags of a tumblr gifset.)

like, yeah, variants of that Roger Ebert Reviews The Mummy (1999) reaction of "i can't even say what this has to recommend it except that i enjoyed the shit out of every minute of it" do deserve space as merits in their own right, but also, for me personally at least, that Brain Go Brr quality of... investment? engagement? obsessive need to poke at it and roll around in it and rotate it on the blorbo rotisserie?... doesn't necessarily have a straightforward relationship with quality or enjoyment. see previous reblog tags re: liking nbc hannibal perfectly well the first time around, but only losing my absolute shit over it when approaching via some borderline-unreadable thomas harris nonsense that managed to sink the first hooks in. and also many previous rants about the brain-go-brr-ness of rtd's doctor who being at its height when the show was most direly in need of fixing.

all of which is kind of a digression from good omens 2, which provoked neither fandom brainrot nor any particularly strong other type of enjoyment - i was sitting there going "this is... nice i guess?" amidst an increasingly acute realization that whatever quality of the book it was that originally hooked me in, pratchett's barbed sense of humor was absolutely vital for making the silliness land for me. i wish everyone who can get in their OTP Feelings about GO2 the joy of it, and will mostly be saluting from a distance as i scroll past on the dash. it seems to have succeeded reasonably well at the things it set out to do--and it turns out those things didn't do it for me, on any of the levels i might've wanted them to. the strange nature of it all is, i'd probably have much more specific criticisms if it had grabbed me.

[uovoc]

Tagged by @howdydowdy: eight shows books to get to know me

Same imma do eight books instead of shows because while I have turbo obsessed over a fair share of shows they don't really say much about me as a person per se. Shows are more just blorbo type.

8 books:

1. Matthew Swift series by Kate Griffin. The love of the nitty gritty mundanity of life that pours out of the pages. Didn't realize how deeply ingrained it had become into my brain until I reread it years later and was like "ohhhhh so THAT'S where I got that idea from... I'd forgotten..."

2. The Sudden Appearance of Hope by Claire North. Woman who literally cannot be remembered makes her living as a professional phantom thief. Devastatingly thorough psychological portrait of the outcome of isolation and self-reliance.

3. Pretending to be Normal by Liane Holliday Willey. There's something about seeing certain experiences you thought were just you, turn out to be shared by someone else. The incredible feeling of knowing that someone out there gets it. There are passages I carry around in my heart to this day. I also carry them around physically because before I returned the book to the library, I photocopied chapters 3 and 4 and put them in a binder to keep forever.

4. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. It's a cliche but it's actually good. Another one of those that years later I looked back on and went "ohhhhh so THAT'S where I originally learned this behavior that is now habitual".

5. Wilderness and the American Mind by Roderick Nash (3rd edition). Technically a history of the American conceptualization of wilderness. Read part of it for a history class. Loved it so much I read the rest of the book, too. After this book and that class, I understood the point of studying history. It undid the years of damage caused by high school AP US History. It completely changed how I view environmentalism and the back-to-nature ethos.

6. Forest Dreams, Forest Nightmares by Nancy Langton. Similar to #5 above, but specifically about the history of forest management in the American Pacific Northwest. Also completely changed how I view natural resource management, both the practice and the administrative structures. Namely: there's no such thing as a healthy ecosystem, only desired system states with varying levels of stability. But on a deeper level: the idea that values taken as inherent truths are social constructs.

7,8. Slots 7 and 8 reserved for future usage. IDK it's hard to think of books that have been as personally resonant as those ones have. But the night is young. The future holds more books yet.

[goldensunset]

I hope I’m not bothering you but I just wanted to say, I’ve never played a Pokémon game in my life but I now love both Volo and Kieran, they seem amazing lmao

yes… YES… i love getting this type of message you have no idea. love blorboposting so hard ppl who don’t even go there approach me about it

volo has been a blorbo for almost a year now and kieran has been one for. a matter of days so to put them on the same level doesn’t seem right but maaaaybe if part 2 of the dlc goes as crazy as i want it to he’ll get up there… but it really is concerning how many story beats they actually have in common…

gaaaaah i love characters who start out friendly and end up insane and resentful. except like volo was bad from the start (although i don’t believe he was always planning on specifically using and betraying you from the start, a bad thing he did beforehand kickstarts the whole premise nonetheless and it’s not like he regretted that) and he alludes to some vague pain in his past that he doesn’t elaborate on (although it’s not hard to speculate in context) so we never get to see it. we don’t know quite what makes him tick we just don’t know enough

but kieran was literally just some innocent kid at the start. like we WATCHED his joker arc happen. we MADE it happen. and it’s so narratively tasty. friendly rivals are good and jerk rivals are good and rivals who warm up to you are good but rivals who turn cold to you??? dude let’s GO. finally someone with a reasonable human response to losing over and over again. you can only be proud and supportive of your competitor, even if they’re a friend, for so long before you start to get a bit resentful. like man that’s soooo what pokémon needed tbh. a rival who really wants to be the main character and instead of eventually folding and giving up on their dreams after you’ve worn them down enough, decides to swear and aggressively double down on pursuing them, even if it means they’re no longer going to consider you a friend. they packed a lot of good stuff into just a few hours man

[bitegore]

hello, im currently making a sort-of remake of your Blorbo Bleebus template (both to make a higher resolution image, darkmode version and transparent versions) and am debating making some changes to it (e.g. changing fruity to queer). Are there any changes you would make nowadays if you could?

originally put this at the end but the post got long so i'm moving it up here. Anyway I really appreciate you doing this and I also appreciate you reaching out about it. If you think I'm full of shit on any or all of the lines, feel free to completely ignore it, I don't mind. I would love to see your version when you're done! Good luck!

Anyway. Honestly I'd probably change up a lot of it - all of the elements were from various memes, and not all of them are in fashion. The only reason fruity is even on there (I don't particularly like the word myself either) is because the original meme that spawned the entire thing (including the idea of it being a blorbo rating system) was from a wine-flavor label - and thus "fruity" was a particularly awkward choice of a word for it to try to say "this tastes like grapes" lol. I don't think almost anyone who saw the sheet had seen that, though, or knew much about wine tasting (no shade, me either), so like a bunch of the other jokes it falls flat to basically everyone lmao.

These are what I would change. You don't have to do any of these, of course. But it's the ones I'd do. Sorry for how much it bounces around, most of them are just "the first thing i thought of after looking at the sheet again" so it's kind of random and not well organized.

#1: "Flavor Container" turned out to be a much more niche thing than I thought it was; replace it with something that gets at the idea of a character being an "archetype" or "really conentrated" amount of that kind of thing that works better and has more broad-spectrum immediate understanding Or just like, some other type of character-describing meme, up to you

#2: someone pointed out (rightly!) that there is one gender-specific subtype (himbo) on there but no female-specific gender subtype, and that the cat meme i put in as placeholder text on the character box uses he/him pronouns, which both kind of push it toward being gender-specific even though that wasn't what I had wanted. I'd either switch Himbo out for a more recent and less gendered meme or add a female-gendered meme (eg: "girlboss", "butch fatale", etc) to even out the subtypes, and swap out the pronouns on the cat meme for they/them instead of he/him. Might also be worthwhile to switch the bar option for "just some guy" for something like "just some rando" but honestly that doesn't have the same energy; I don;t think there is a properly gender-neutral equivalent for 'guy' that i can think of that won't sound forced and as long as it's not directed at anyone in particular I think that one can be left alone. Tbh if you're switching fruity out you should almost definitely also do these.

#3. i'm pretty sure calling things skrunkly is on its way out, i'd come up with a more recent meme adjective for the name spot i think

#4. one of the bars in the middle of the page goes between "1,000 tools" and "1,000 weapons", which (because I expected at most 30 notes) I figured would be similarly comprehensible to flavor container. It's meant to reflect an outlook on life, ie, do they build things up to solve problems or do they attack and tear down their problems? I don't think this is a very effective set and also it's not a good joke, so it's probably best to put something else there.

#5. the "you want them to have" section is clunky and not very good, which is because that was the last part i did when I made it and I rushed it because I was bored of the project by then. I think there are a lot more interesting things to talk about than "do they have sex" "do they have romance" "do they have friends" and "did you hate their ending specifically" BUT also i have been informed that this is the shipping website and I'm not really a huge shipper, so my lack of interest in most of the contents of those boxes might not be reflective of everyone else's! Please use your best judgement here, if you like that bit then you can absolutely keep it. That being said I think it would be interesting to get into something like "tropes" instead, switching out the idea of like, desirable plot beats for the character with like, desirable common storytelling tropes or something to suhove the character into, or genres, or w/e. it would also suit the rest of the sheet better. i also think it would be more fun to be filling in boxes like "go in the dark" and "bonk on head with giant mallet" and "hunted for sport" than "more romance" and "less romance", if you follow me lol

#6. The idea of the slider bars is fine, but the shape is apparently kind of tough for people to work with unless they're confident drawing digitally in some way, so intead of doing a straight black line with a black line down the center, I would do an outlined bar with a black line down the center, sort of like the below. I think this will be easier for people to fill in with a paint bucket tool or w/e and hopefully save some wrists.

#7. I keep seeing comments asking for it to be a fillable PDF as well, which is like, not something I am capable of making if I'm honest. I don't do PDFs. No idea if you do, but if you do have the ability, it might be a solid plan to make it as a PDF first so it can be converted into a fillable PDF somehow. I took a stab at doing that yesterday but then i got frustrated and bored and gave up lol.

#8. tbh if you're making it a bigger resolution this might not be an issue but the text is really kind of small. I'd probably change the image ratio and scale a lot of the text up, sort of like this (sorry i am not working on a computer where i have robust photo editing tools or the original file so i am just sort of cutting it up in photopea with my mouse so it looks kind of jank). The reason for this is because the program I made it in just sort of opened with a printer-paper-sized page and i went "cool, I can work with that" and didn't change it. But when sharing and posting it, it becomes hard to read.

(this also doesnt really work... i'm not very good at optimizing things for post-readability ;-;)

#9. the slider between "stupid as shit" and "scary-smart" isnt that good, i'd swap it for "not the..." and "sharpest tool in the shed" respectively, because i think that that is more fun. or something along those lines

#10. I already said I would change this bit out entirely, but if you do keep the "you want them to have" section mostly as-is, the last eight or so don't really fit with what's already there - "freedom", "catharsis", "justification", "The Realization", "revenge", "conseequences", "sympathy" and "a satisfying ending" are about the writing the character is situated in, but "a better/worse time", "better/worse situation", "more/less trauma", "more/less healing", "more/less/different romance", "more/less/different sex", "more/less/different friends", "painful isolation" and "a family" are about relationships and emotional experiences the character is having in-universe. I guess you could leave freedom, revenge and consequences in there, but they don't really suit it well. I'd either switch the last handful for things that fit the theme (and also the more/less/different/none scheme), or make the entire thing center around the writing choices in the original narrative they're from.

#11. If you're redoing it from the ground up, you also get to pick a better font... I badly wish I had done all the titles in Impact (the meme font, you know the one) because I think it would've been funny. I probably would've put like, "bottom text" at the very bottom of the page too but that's probably not as funny to anyone who isn't me. I didn't want to bother tweaking it when I finished it, so it has NBOS's default font (I think it was Arial Black?) instead.

#12. I'd probably switch "soft and sweet" to "cinnamon roll", i've seen that one make a comeback recently and also it's so old that the fact that it's out of date brings some kind of humor to it along with it in a way that "soft and sweet" doesn't really do.

#13. "aspirational character" doesn't really do anything in the subclass list anyway - it's not interesting or funny and much of what it covers is also covered by "just like you fr" and "braincell haver", so i'd also replace that one with a more interesting recent character meme.

#14. tbh the checkboxes underneath the picture box were me taking a bunch of potshots at Batman specifically (well, besides murderer, but that was beacuse I needed another line). In the spirit of it, if you have a particularly common Kind of blorbo that other people keep putting on your dash nowadays, it would probably make sense to take their traits and put them in there instead until if you check all of them off you get that character instead. Keep it updated and fresh and fun and all that lol.

Also - last things-

please don't write me in as the "original creator" or w/e - I was cribbing so much from so many other people and places that I don't really feel like it's worth crediting it all to me, all I did was grid it out. No idea if that was part of your plan but if it was like. don't worry about it, if it wasn't, then that's great because that works for both of us :D

understand if you're not interested or don't want it, but if it would be helpful, I can send you a probably way higher resolution version than is floating around on Tumblr if you like - the program I made it with was designing it to be a printable sheet so it's a high enough resolution that the edgtes would all print nice and crisply, I think Tumblr just has a maximum image size and my layout didn't work very well with it lmao